"So what do we do now?"

The Doctor shook his head and smiled grimly. "I don't know," he chuckled darkly to himself, "I seem to be saying that a lot, actually. I don't like it."

I smiled. "Yeah, now you get to feel how I feel all the time." The Doctor's eyes brightened a little and his smile became more genuine at my joke. "Let's just keep going," I suggested. "Really, how worse can it get?" He shrugged in consent and we began walking down the corridor.

We had gotten maybe ten feet when a soft noise made us stop.

Shit. Why am I always wrong?

"Ahem," it sounded again, a little more impatient this time. The Doctor and I turned to look at each other before searching for the source of the voice, though neither of us had any luck.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," it said again, all politeness replaced with irritation. "Turn around."

We did as the voice commanded and turned to face the tapestry of the seaside cliff. As I inspected the weaving more carefully, I noticed that it had changed: a woman in a white dress was now standing in the center of it.

The Doctor and I looked at each other with awed expressions, but before either of us could say anything, the woman's voice rang out again: "Well, don't just stand there, get in."

The Doctor and I stood in a shocked silence for a moment. "Get in?" I repeated quietly to him, "What, are we just supposed to walk into the tapestry?"

He shrugged with an unsure expression before taking my hand, "We might as well do what we're told. If this is a game, we should play, right?"

I nodded and sighed before squeezing my eyes shut as we stepped through the tapestry. I could feel the moment when we were through- it felt like we had passed through a waterfall. And then suddenly a breeze smelling of sea water blew through my hair and the sound of waves crashing and seagulls reached my ears. I slowly opened my eyes and saw that we were at lease seventy feet above the water, and that the woman in white was standing near the edge of the cliff.

The Doctor and I made our way over to her, stopping when we were in talking distance. "So, I suppose you're the one controlling all this?" the Doctor asked.

She smirked, "If you're referring to keeping you here, then yes. Although, while I am controlling the situation, I am not controlling you." I had to do a double take when I heard her voice. Whereas the Doctor had to nearly shout to be heard over the waves, the woman spoke as if we were right next to her, and I could still hear her perfectly.

"No..." he paused as if he was trying to figure something out, "you just want to see how we react to your situation," he concluded.

"I must admit, I am ... curious."

"That's not fair, you can't do that!" I burst out. The woman gave me a burning glare and the Doctor squeezed my hand in warning, but I just let go of his hand. "You can't make people into an experiment!"

For a moment everything was still, and then the woman began to walk towards me. I noticed now that although the wind on the cliff was blowing on both the Doctor and I, she seemed completely unaffected. Even her blonde hair remained perfectly still on her shoulders. She smiled, but there was nothing happy in her expression. It almost seemed threatening, actually.

"I care not for how you speak," she said once we were nearly face to face. I could feel the Doctor stiffen beside me and I'm sure she noticed it as well, though she did not look away from me. "But I admire bravery," she finished slowly.

When I didn't answer, she took a step back. "You might prefer to think of this as a test, rather than an experiment or a 'game', as you called it earlier."

"A test for what?" the Doctor asked. Although even when he spoke to her, her eyes did not stray from mine. I read once that when someone threatening was staring at you it was a sign of weakness to look away, so I fought every instinct I had to keep eye contact.

"I believe you did come here to see the Prophetess of the Thermo Natio. If you pass, then I will let you see her."

"And if we fail?"

She smiled, finally breaking eye contact with me and instead staring at the Doctor. "Then you will not see her," she said simply, and although she wasn't directly threatening us, her answer still made me anxious.

"Who are you?" I asked coldly.

She smiled but ignored my question, keeping eye contact with me again. The Doctor looked between us and took a protective step towards me. "What are we being tested on?"

"I want to see if you are worthy."

"Of?" I asked.

"Meeting the Prophetess, of course. The location of the Prophetess is a safely guarded secret for a reason: she has immeasurable knowledge of the past, present, and future. Did you really think that getting to her would be that easy?" she asked with a cold laugh. I sighed in dismay, I honestly had thought it would be easy.

"My test is designed for one thing: to reveal the truth. Only then can I determine if you are worthy. And, as is the case with truth, you will not like all that you find along the way."

"To reveal the truth," I repeated to myself. The Doctor looked at me curiously and I leaned toward him, "Before, when I yelled at you. I told the truth- and that happened right after she trapped us in here," I whispered.

"Yes, that was a part of the test," the woman answered matter-of-factly. I don't even know why I was surprised that she could hear me, after all we knew she could do it wasn't exactly a stretch of the imagination.

I turned to the Doctor warily. It appeared that he was thinking the same thing that I was: we didn't have much of a choice but to play along.

The Doctor looked down and thought for a moment. "So what is this test?"

She looked us over before she satisfied that we were going to cooperate. Then she spoke: "Answering that would be cheating. Speaking of-" she raised her arm and I almost expected her to attack us when she simply snapped her fingers. I looked at her in confusion before I noticed that the Doctor had once again put his head in his hands, groaning in pain.

I stepped closer to the Doctor and placed my hands over his, trying to see if he was alright. "What have you done to him?" I shouted back at her.

She shrugged nonchalantly. "You could say I have evened the playing field. I have made the test more fair."

"By hurting him?!" I asked incredulously.

"Lily, Lily," the Doctor said soothingly, finally lifting his head up. I could see in his eyes that he was still in pain, but it looked as if he was managing it. "I'm fine, it's okay," he assured me before turning to glare at the woman.

"What was that?" he asked icily. If I hadn't known him, the mere tone of his voice would've made me afraid. However, the woman merely smirked.

"A mind block. I believe you have experienced its' affects before. You called it a 'headache'." She scoffed, "As if Time Lords get headaches."

At this point I was seeing red. This woman could lock us in here and make us take her little test, but once she started hurting the Doctor, my Doctor, I had no desire to cooperate anymore. I wanted to run towards her and make her let us out, and I nearly did before I remembered that this woman probably had the power to kill me on the spot. I clamped my eyes shut and took a deep breath. Once I was fairly certain I wasn't going to rip her head off I opened my eyes again. "What do you mean a mental block," I asked with great restraint.

"I'm no fool," she said scornfully, "I have heard of the Doctor, the 'Oncoming Storm', the 'Destroyer'." She shook her head, "Anyone who can strike that much fear into the Daleks can't be underestimated. The mental block with suppress your cleverness. Every time you get close to an answer your brain will fight against itself- hence the pain."

"How exactly is that fair?" he asked callously.

"Because this is not a test for you, Doctor," she said, her patience disappearing. "There is no reason, I already know your truth. But her-" she turned to me deliberately with a curious gleam in her eyes, "she is harder to figure out."

I heard the Doctor let out a quiet chuckle beside me. "Tell me about it," he said bitterly.

"If you figured out the test for her, there would be no point to it. In order for me to discern her truth, she must pass the test without your help."

"Then why allow me to stay with her at all?"

She sighed in irritation and I could've sworn I saw her roll her eyes. "I believe she would be ... upset if I removed you from the situation."

It took me by surprise that the woman who had practically imprisoned us had considered my feelings. I mean, we were trapped, why would she even care? However, it didn't mean I liked her any more.

She seemed to grow tired of the silence between all of us. "Very well then. Now that that's sorted, the test can begin." She raised her arm again and paused. "Good luck," was the last thing she said before snapping her fingers. She vanished into thin air, leaving the Doctor and I standing on the cliff.

"Brilliant," I muttered spitefully to myself, "Just bloody brilliant!" I turned away from the spot where the woman vanished and ran my fingers through my hair in frustration.

The Doctor looked at me hesitantly, as if he thought I might start yelling at him again. "Lily..." he walked up to me and placed his hands on my shoulders to comfort me. I instantly relaxed at the touch and let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. "We should get out of here," he said softly.

I nodded and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer. I just needed to feel him close to me. I placed a small kiss on his neck and he huffed out a laugh, wrapping his arms around me. "What was that for?" he asked with a smile in his voice.

I sighed contentedly and breathed in the smell of his neck for a few more seconds. For some reason, it had always been so calming to me. Whenever I had a nightmare or vision he would always hold me and just the smell of him made me feel better. He smelled like the TARDIS. Like home.

It took probably a minute to make myself let go of him. He was right after all, we did need to get out of here.

"I just needed a moment," I explained. He smiled in understanding and took my hand, leading me away from the cliff.

It turned out the tapestry was reversible: whereas before we had seen the cliff woven into the fabric, now we saw the corridor that we had been in. I looked around and saw that it wasn't hanging from anything, and it wasn't standing on the ground either. It was simply ... there. Floating about four inches off the grass.

This time I kept my eyes open as we went through, just to see what it actually looked like to jump across the universe in less than a second. As I passed through I felt the sensation of walking through a waterfall again and I can only describe what I saw as ripples... Like, the whole fabric of reality seemed to ripple around me and before I could figure out what exactly happened we were back in the corridor.

"Trippy," I commented with a dumb smile on my face.

I looked over at the Doctor expecting to see him roll his eyes, but instead my grin instantly disappeared when I saw how horrified he looked. And then I heard it:

"DELETE!"

I whipped my head around and only caught a glimpse of the three Cybermen before the Doctor had began pulling me down the corridor, only saying one word:

"Run!"

The Doctor and I bolted down the corridor, constantly ducking and shielding our heads when we heard the sounds of lasers being shot at us. I was so distracted by the imminent threat that I didn't even realize that something was horribly wrong with the corridor.

The tapestries were gone.

That meant there was no way out, that we were trapped in an endless corridor with three homicidal robots chasing us, and let's face it, I wasn't exactly a marathon runner.

"Any suggestions?" I shouted to the Doctor, who was trying to pull me faster. You'd think after all this time of running from aliens I would at least be able to keep pace with him.

The Doctor nodded and got out the sonic screwdriver while he was running, frantically pointing it around at the walls until suddenly I heard it resonate at a different frequency. I looked to see the Doctor's reaction and deduced that it was good news.

"There's another portal coming up- they resonate differently than the walls!" he shouted back, dodging another laser. He pointed to a spot about a hundred feet in front of us and I saw it. I began flat-out sprinting towards it and soon enough the two of us jumped through, successfully muffling the incessant commands the Cybermen had been giving out.

As I was catching my breath, I finally got the chance to register where we were exactly, and didn't like what I saw.

We were in a grey room: grey ceilings, grey floors, completely unfurnished and boring except for the three doors that were facing us.

"Well this doesn't look ominous at all," I commented.

The Doctor huffed at my sarcasm and put away the sonic. "They won't be far behind."

I nodded and stepped away from the tapestry. I didn't really fancy getting snuck up on by a Cyberman. "Right then, pick a door and let's get on with this nightmare."

The Doctor looked from me to the doors warily. "Lily, I think you have to choose."

"What? Why?"

"Because this is your test," he said simply. "You have to figure this out, and you have to make the decisions."

"But what am I even supposed to figure out?! How am I supposed to figure it out if I don't know what it is!" I asked in frustration.

"Lily, I don't know!" he shouted, "I don't know how we're supposed to get out of here, or what we will face in this test, or even what it's supposed to prove. But I do know that you have to pick a door and if you don't we'll get killed by Cybermen!"

What he said seemed to knock some sense into me and I ran in the direction of the door on the left, the Doctor not far behind. I pulled him through and slammed the door behind us. We stood there, listening for any sign of the Cybermen on the other side. After a few minutes we both relaxed against the frame.

I looked up and groaned. We were in another corridor. But this one wasn't decorated with carpets or tapestries, it was exactly like the room we had entered before: completely grey with doors all along it. And it seemed to go on forever.

"Perfect."

The Doctor sighed as well. "Perhaps if we go back and choose another door, it will be easier," he said hopefully.

I nodded and opened the door we came through.

Jesus Christ...

The room we had been in before was gone, and in it's place was a corridor mirroring the one now behind us. Either way we looked, we were surrounded by endless grey doors.

"We're in a maze," I sighed in dismay.